All That We Are? Five Aggregates Made Simple, Sort Of

I am going back to the basics and reading about the four noble truths, the first of which is suffering or dukkha.

"Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."

The five aggregates are difficult for me to wrap my head around, so I wanted to take some time to teach them to myself in my own language.

The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, karmic formation (or fabrication) and consciousness.

Reggie Ray says that “consciousness is like a field surrounded by an electric fence”.

It is where my mind separates THIS from THAT, then there is a bunch of other stuff that doesn’t exist for me at all. (Not in my field of consciousness). So for instance I may not be consciouss of the space around the glass. I am seeing the glass, the water in the glass. I am conditioned to do that.

"Consciousness without feature is thus the awareness of Awakening. And the freedom of this awareness carries over even when the awakened person returns to ordinary consciousness. As the Buddha said of himself: